MAB

As above, for one set maybe but not for an entire theme and definitely not two waves. Aside from the headless horseman, Ichabod, Katrina and Brom, I'm not sure what else would sell. They would also have to make sure the characters do not look anything like the Tim Burton movie version (probably the best known film adaption). The early stuff (Greek, Roman, etc) is probably fine, although I'd prefer 1500s and 1600s to 1700s, covering Renaissance in Europe and Tudors in England. For some of the others, they would probably need to be a bit careful with balance and offending people if they are meant to be specific wars. For example, if they badged something as Napoleon's loss rather than Wellington's / von Blucher's victory, it may come across as anti-French, especially if they do another French loss such as Agincourt. But then that would be the problem with doing nationalistic sets. I think I'd prefer rather generic clothing that could be any nation (a bit like in the Castle theme). The other problem with battle style sets is that in many cases they really need to be just big armies. The Battle of Five Armies in the Hobbit range was not exactly a great set and did not live up to the name.

Is there a hole down the middle of the white connector that you can poke something down to remove the grey axle? I don't think I have one of those. Can you remove the blue pins or are they poked through from inside the frame? If so, it might give a little more wiggle room.

I don't think it is necessarily marketed towards girls, just that girls buy the stuff. I doubt they would mix minidolls and minifigures within a theme. For example, the is the DC Super Hero Girls is a separate theme and franchise to DC Comics Super Heroes.

It has been available for years in black, since the Sumo CMF, repeated in the Samurai. There are loads on BL, relatively cheap too.

Yep, I can fully understand buyers refusing to complete sales for them. It is even worse for sellers in countries with distance selling regulations where the law allows returns for items purchased online for a couple of weeks.

It may appeal to all age groups but it doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone. The other good thing about HP in the LEGO world is that it is quite girl friendly - from what I can tell looking at people at platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross and outside Harry Potter shops is that the majority of fans buying merchandise are probably girls - and it is also international - many of those people at platform 9 3/4 are Japanese and Chinese tourists. This gives a massive audience to buy the products. It also means that the theme doesn't get split like Superheroes into "boy" sets and "girl" sets, with mainly male minifigures for the boys and mainly female minidolls for the girls.

Why stop there ... give one a sword to make him a barbearian, re-do the judge but make him a bearister, have a bearista for a coffee shop and a male singing bear, the bearitone. Back on track with the series 18, I hope if it is costumes that are not just one large molded piece and the torsos still come with prints (like the plant monster) rather than just plain torsos (like many of the one piece coverall parts such as the banana and hotdog). I find the one piece style ones cannot be posed so well.

I'm fairly ambivalent towards resellers if they lose money (or not make as much money as they could have) due to re-issues. Although I have even less sympathy for the guys who trash lego sets for advertising money when youtube cuts the amount they get paid. But as I already said, I don't think it will stop resellers selling lego. Some sets will still do well longer term if picked carefully. But more damaging is that resellers will change their behaviour and go for more quick flips of current and recently retired sets than holding long term investments. The former will make it harder for buyers of current sets, the latter will make it harder for buyers wanting older retired sets. Whether a particular set is remade or not, just the possibility of a remake may make numbers held by resellers fall (compared to now) and so secondary market prices might actually increase, and possibly increase at a faster rate once retired.

If they are an investor, then hoping that it will go up in value is the only reason to "collect" them. Personally, I don't care what people do with what they buy. If they want to open it and build it as they enjoy doing that, that's fine by me - and this covers many collectors. If they want to open it and mix it up with other lego, again fine - this covers many more collectors. If they want to display the sealed box without building it, that's also fine - obviously, now this is getting more niche. If they want to put it in a dark air-conditioned vault to preserve it in the state it was originally available, also fine. If they want to invest in it to make a profit later, again fine. If they want to review it on youtube to make money from it, fine. If they want to open it, cut the parts to customise them, paint it or draw all over it with a Sharpie, play with it in a sand-pit, make youtube videos of it being thrown, dropped or crushed, etc, also fine. I don't think it is up to anyone to tell anyone else what they should or shouldn't be doing with their own property. Different people can enjoy doing different things with the same item. The vast majority of lego retail sets are available for months to years, what one person does with them when they purchase one or more sets doesn't affect anyone else.

There are still seven different colours of plain heads available to me (in UK).

It sounds like you have a complete bear series already planned out in your head. We probably need a zombie bear, a diver bear and a skater bear to complete it!

This is not correct. There are two Azog minifigures, but they are both available in regular retail sets. The first one (with closed mouth) was in the SDCC 2013 set but then also appeared in exactly the same form in 79014, released later in 2013. This set also has Radagast, Gandalf, Orcs, Necromancer, etc. The second one (with open mouth) was in 79017, from 2014 and this is the set with Bard, Thorin, Dain, etc. I wouldn't buy the SDCC one if you just wanted the figure - you are really paying for the packaging. It goes for multiple $100s (about $800 on BL currently).

I'd never heard of it either. I doubt a (globally) not very well known US TV show would go down very well as a CMF series. The Simpsons is well known world-wide and that seems not to have sold that well as a CMF series (although I liked it, but they could have done better characters).

Yeah, and the 32x32 size ones have handy sized boxes for parts storage too. At one point, it was cheaper to buy Ramses Pyramid than it was to buy just a 32x32 tan baseplate. I bought a car boot load of them.

This is beautiful. For me the pink one is a little too pink and I think would look better if more purple with pink accents. The others blend into their surroundings better. Although you could put it in the middle of a pink blossom forest.

Let's assume that the re-issue would take the place of a new one, as it would otherwise be in competition with other current releases. I don't think CC does stand up to current design standards. I really wonder if the demand is there for CC if it was re-released, just with updated parts where the old ones are no longer produced but little else changed, but also at modern prices. I guess the question is why do people want the old one - is it due to the value and rarity or is it because they genuinely want that particular build?

I like a nice warm house, but the poor old tree has a bad time after a few days.

I have both sets, used / built and none to sell. I only ever bought one of each. I wouldn't buy another green steam train if it was a replica or similar reissue of EN but I would buy in another colour. Or I would buy another green one if significantly different size / design. I genuinely think a new design with more modern bricks and techniques would sell better to new and existing fans, rather than a reissue made for new fans only just to stick two fingers up to resellers.

Dark tan, tan and olive green would probably be a good start. You can get this piece in olive green to cover a landscape, maybe mixing in a few regular green, but it won't be cheap in the quantity you'll need.

I thought it was that they were just not that successful. I don't think I ever paid more than 50% retail for them, and I have most of them. Including Batman, LOTR, SW Hoth, down to the in-house themes such as Kokoriko, Shave a Sheep and Banana Balance.

I think that was one where they had an agreement about the maximum number of sets they could produce, further complicated by being an Ideas set so paying royalties to an external designer. If they were to remake it, I'd hope for a new design at a different scale not just a rehash. (Disclosure - I own two copies, one built, one sealed). New sets also do this. And they also appeal to existing LEGO buyers / collectors. I wonder how many people would be happy if LEGO just kept recycling old designs, maybe changing colours but not actually designing much new. No doubt many people would love to see a re-released Cafe Corner, but I'd much prefer to see a new corner building, even a cafe, just not the old one. I'd prefer to see a new one in the style of modern modulars, not a like-for-like copy of something they did a decade ago.

It may even be that they continue to do regional sets - so things like The Journey to the West could be released in Asia, much like they have done with the Year of the ... sets. Although Journey to the West would be an interesting one, as a couple of different Chinese companies have already made minifigures based on this story. I have some JLB ones, I cannot remember the other company. If Lego makes something that they have already made, then it may well reinforce arguments that they should be able to make what Lego has made.

I guess the question then is does LEGO need to do it. Not viable for a full theme sounds a bit like "we cannot be bothered to develop a whole theme". Do they really need to pump out lots of clearance ideas? I imagine they have enough full theme ideas not to. Also, while the subject matter of the creator theme is huge, I think there is a very consistent theme that runs though it - creativity based on a selection of parts. The common build three different things from a selection of bricks. Given this selection of bricks, you can make ... a car, a dinosaur and a sea-plane. Or this set ... a jeep, a helicopter and a hovercraft. As soon as minifigures start being included, the sets tend to get pigeonholed into a certain style, even for fairly generic figures.

Star Wars has a very big following and a decent number of those fans are middle-aged well-off people (the original SW fans all grown up). I'm not so sure the Taj Mahal has such a big following among the lego buying population. Although it is a nice set, it is also a bit boring as a display piece. I have a sort of rule that I will only display things that look good as they are, and I'd want them displayed if they weren't made from LEGO. The Taj Mahal looks impressive due to the size and it being LEGO, at least for a while. But I don't think I'd ever want to display a non-lego large Taj Mahal. And now people cannot even say it is the biggest ever LEGO set, so it no longer has that going for it either. I had one before and I sold it although quite a while before the peak in prices. I don't think I'd buy it again. The build is OK, at least the first time for a quarter of it :-)

The problem I see with something like that is that it is not a theme. It is just a collection of random stuff and not that different to what they currently do if you just pick random sets from different themes (although the subjects will be different). This would make it hard to market it and encourage future sales from the "theme" on the back of previous sales. It would probably also cause buyer confusion - why is a pirate ship in the same collection as a dinosaur and spaceship? I prefer to see a theme as a whole and decide whether or not to buy into it. For example, a Roman battle pack is nice, but not so useful if there are no enemies to fight against or no other city or population to defend. I'd want to know what else there is likely to be before investing in a large Roman army. Plus, marketing a theme is probably going to be more successful than an individual one-off set or collection of disparate sets. If a Roman theme will not be financially viable, why would a Roman battle pack sold in the same collection as a deep sea headquarters?